Happy Days (August 11, 2023)
Welcome to Home & Away. Lots of politics to assess, beginning with the race for the presidential nomination on the Republican side. Donald Trump, the current frontrunner, is pursuing a two-pronged strategy. Inside the courtroom, he is doing his best to run out the clock so that the process does not advance significantly much less come to a head before the election is decided. Outside the courtroom, he is doing his best to paint the system as illegitimate and rife with double standards, comparing his legal fate with that of Hunter Biden. He may be doing better in his external effort as the Hunter Biden story (or, more accurately, the Joe Biden connection to the Hunter Biden story) appears to be gaining some traction.
In the meantime, Trump’s opponents are still struggling with how to differentiate themselves from someone who retains such popularity with the Republican base without alienating that base. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, took some tentative steps in that direction, but still couldn’t quite bring himself to declare that Joe Biden won what was a free and fair election in 2020.
Worse yet, DeSantis provided new evidence as to just how far our politics have descended. Asked what he would do if elected, DeSantis said, “we’re going to start slitting throats” of the “deep state,” i.e., federal workers, on day one. To speak so pejoratively of those who have opted to work for this country and to use such violent imagery can only discourage talented people from entering government or, worse yet, encourage acts of violence against those who do. I take some comfort, however, from the growing evidence his campaign seems to be going nowhere, as he continues to swap out campaign managers when the problem is more with the candidate and his message.
Chris Christie for his part is having no qualms taking on Trump as well as those in his party who are unwilling to support Ukraine against Russia. He is emerging as the “Happy Warrior” of this election. He visited Ukraine and made a strong statement of support for U.S. policy, arguing that the Biden administration should be doing even more than it already is. He and the others vying for the Republican nomination will have the opportunity to debate this and everything else in Milwaukee on August 23. The question remains whether Trump will join the fray and, if so, what comes of it.
Ohio Votes
The most significant news at Home this past week may well have been Tuesday’s vote in Ohio, in which a ballot initiative that would have increased the threshold required for changes to the state constitution from 50 to 60% was thrashed. At first glance, one might be tempted to think that making it more difficult to enact constitutional changes is a good thing, but this vote was not really about that. What it was about was Republicans in the state trying to make it more difficult to preserve abortion rights.
Two reactions. First, the extreme position on abortion limits staked out by the Supreme Court and a handful of states is an electoral liability for Republicans and an asset for Democrats. Republicans are out of step with much of the country, which supports a position balancing the interests of the mother and the unborn.
Second, it is always good to see efforts to game the political process fail. The ballot initiative was rushed by proponents who control the Ohio state legislature to make it harder for an effort set for November to amend the state constitution and enshrine abortion rights to pass. There was nothing noble about this failed effort.
Broken China
As for Away, the Biden administration put into place new controls on investment by American firms in China in technologies (including AI, quantum computing, and advanced semiconductors) that could fuel China’s economy, contribute to military modernization, and aid its surveillance technologies (and domestic repression). This executive order, rumored to be coming for over a year, will not make Chinese leaders happy; to the contrary, it will reinforce their view that the United States is determined to stop its rise and poses the gravest long-term threat to the Chinese Communist Party.
A more immediate challenge will come when Taiwan’s Vice President (and presidential candidate) Lai Ching-te stops in New York this week en route to Paraguay and then San Francisco during his return leg. China will step up pressure on Taiwan in response and could use this as an opportunity to shift the status quo in the Taiwan Strait further in its favor, all of which will make it harder to establish the floor in the U.S.-China relationship that President Biden seeks.
Speaking of China, its economy appears to be in serious trouble. For decades now the intellectual paradigm through which outsiders have viewed China’s economy was one of rapid, double-digit increases. In recent years, growth slowed, but it was still significant. This has now changed. There are any number of reasons, above all excessive and often counter-productive government intervention in the economy, much of which reflects a decision by the leadership to put political considerations before sound economic policy. China relied on investment in infrastructure and real estate to provide much of its growth, but the country is now overbuilt, especially with a shrinking population. Most economists believe that Beijing will need to promote consumption, but the government is resisting this overdue shift and citizens are more inclined to save than spend. The best piece I have seen on China’s economic woes – what the author describes as “economic long Covid” – is by Adam Posen in Foreign Affairs.
Why Peace In Ukraine Is Not At Hand
It is now some 18 months since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine has done better than almost anyone imagined. But this accomplishment led to a more ambitious definition of success, namely, the liberation of all land occupied by Russia not just since February 2022 but since 2014, above all Crimea.
To help bring this about, the United States and Europe have gradually eliminated many of their self-imposed limits on what they were prepared to provide Ukraine (tanks, cluster munitions, fighter aircraft, etc.). The problem is that these arms and the counter-offensive they have fueled have not led to a breakthrough. Russian forces are well dug in and Russia enjoys an advantage in quantity of munitions that helps it offset disadvantages in the quality of arms and military performance. It is not at all obvious the battlefield will look appreciably different as this fighting season wanes this autumn. Meanwhile, the war continues to exact an enormous human and economic toll on Ukraine and its people.
Peace prospects remain poor. More than twenty years ago I published a book (Conflicts Unending: The United States and Regional Disputes) built around the idea of ripeness: that what matters most in ending conflicts is not the existence of peace plans so much as the presence of leadership on all sides of a conflict that are both willing and able to compromise to end the fighting.
The problem with the Ukraine war is that neither side is as yet willing to compromise. Vladimir Putin is plenty strong enough to compromise if he so chose, but he appears to believe that the passage of time will force Ukraine to accept his terms as the costs of the war mount and its western backers lose interest. He seems to be preparing his country and its people for a long war. To get insight into what Putin is doing to and with today’s Russia, I strongly suggest you read Roger Cohen’s recent piece, “Putin’s Forever War.”
As for Ukraine, there are no signs President Zelensky is prepared to back away from his goal of liberating all his country’s territory. (Whether he could and not face serious political pushback is a question for another day.) For now, he and others in his inner circle have also included economic reparations and war crimes accountability as war aims. Absent a transformation of the battlefield in Ukraine’s favor, such ambitious goals are more a recipe for continued war than for negotiating an end to it.
As a result, it is not at all surprising the “peace conference” convened in Saudi Arabia this past week achieved little if anything. But then the gathering of some forty countries was not quite a peace conference.
The Saudis were happy to host the event as another demonstration of their prominence and weight. China was happy to attend to show it is interested in peace despite its extensive support of Russia. Ukraine was happy to attend as it approached the meeting not as a peace conference but as a way to isolate Russia and build support for its position. And Russia was happy not to attend as in the end the conference had no meaningful impact. All I can say is that it is rare in this world for so many diverse parties to walk away so content from anything.
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Richard Haass in the news
Monday, July 3: MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Reports on violence in Jenin.
Thursday, August 3: MSNBC Morning Joe on Fitch downgrading the U.S. credit rating (begins at 49:12; audio-only).
Tuesday, August 8: MSNBC Morning Joe on Donald Trump and American democracy.
Wednesday, August 9: MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Reports on U.S.-China relations. The Michael Medved Show on American democracy, global challenges, and the war in Ukraine.
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens.